Title says all. I think it'd be useful myself, kind of similar to tags like "marine turtle", but I wanted some input and thoughts on the subject.

I'd say no: the affix "flightless" is rather meaningless on a site that hosts fictional artwork all the time; you'd need to know that they are flightless, and they may not display that. Birds isn't that descriptive anyhow, so it fills the mold of almost anything avian.

Marine turtle is not a good comparison, you are comparing an entity that are meant to swim, yet can still walk on land, over an entity that lack the ability over flight, when contrasting with normal birds that can still walk. The visuals of a flightless bird doesn't differ as much between themselves and normal birds, to marine turtles and turtles.

Siral_Exan said:
The visuals of a flightless bird doesn't differ as much between themselves and normal birds, to marine turtles and turtles.

I can't see the difference between an emu and a pigeon either.

Johannes said:
I can't see the difference between an emu and a pigeon either.

You missed my point by alot. Let me rephrase that: trying to describe a species as a bird is not very descriptive at all, as there are far too many birds that differ in some regard. Flightless birds would be even less descriptive, the visuals are far more different. It's easier to go taxidermic and follow family names than describe them as a bird of any context.

You, frankly, justified me ranting to myself. I knew someone would try to do this (not exact) comparison.

There are less than a dozen "kinds of bird" that can be readily identified as inspiration for an anthropomorphic design, and not many more that are even recognized by an average person in a non-furry context.

Unless it's a harpy, every bird furry I draw is flightless, so what is the point of calling out whether the bird(s) I used as reference can fly? You may as well have a tag for whether the original animal has internal testis or not (ignoring whether the character in the image does in the process.)

Aren't most flightless birds either ratites or penguins?

FibS said:
There are less than a dozen "kinds of bird" that can be readily identified as inspiration for an anthropomorphic design, and not many more that are even recognized by an average person in a non-furry context.

Unless it's a harpy, every bird furry I draw is flightless, so what is the point of calling out whether the bird(s) I used as reference can fly? You may as well have a tag for whether the original animal has internal testis or not (ignoring whether the character in the image does in the process.)

Not everyone draws bird furries as flightless. Some are shown flying, and some of those with wings instead of arms instead of back-wings. Some specifically wear things that don't restrict flight.

Dogpile!

What about anthro birds? Should wingless and vestigially-winged anthro birds be tagged as flightless_birds?

And this?

post #1263382

ambiguously-flighted_bird?

You need to restrain the scope of your idea into something more specific. vestigial_wings would conceivably work better, but you'd still need to grapple with not knowing the evolutionary track of fictional characters. In many cases, a post depicting an avian provides enough information to deduce if the avian is incapable of flight, even without knowing crucial anatomical details like tissue and bone density. Problems arise when considering the less obvious, borderline cases, which are legion.

The idea has merit, I suppose, but the tag needs iteration and obvious boundaries so even casual taggers know when to apply the tag.

abadbird said:
Dogpile!

What about anthro birds? Should wingless and vestigially-winged anthro birds be tagged as flightless_birds?

And this?

post #1263382

ambiguously-flighted_bird?

You need to restrain the scope of your idea into something more specific. vestigial_wings would conceivably work better, but you'd still need to grapple with not knowing the evolutionary track of fictional characters. In many cases, a post depicting an avian provides enough information to deduce if the avian is incapable of flight, even without knowing crucial anatomical details like tissue and bone density. Problems arise when considering the less obvious, borderline cases, which are legion.

The idea has merit, I suppose, but the tag needs iteration and obvious boundaries so even casual taggers know when to apply the tag.

Gotcha.

I mainly thought of the idea because most flightless birds have similar features/looks in terms of general body structure (usually thicker/fatter, tends to have smaller wings, etc etc) so I thought perhaps people who like that quality in bird species might benefit from a separate tag.

But now I see perhaps that it was too vague ahaha. Oh well

DiceLovesBeingBlown said:
Gotcha.

I mainly thought of the idea because most flightless birds have similar features/looks in terms of general body structure (usually thicker/fatter, tends to have smaller wings, etc etc) so I thought perhaps people who like that quality in bird species might benefit from a separate tag.

But now I see perhaps that it was too vague ahaha. Oh well

Ratites and penguins.

Emu, ostrich, kiwi, cassowary and several other flightless birds are ratites. See wikipedia for more info.

BlueDingo said:
Ratites and penguins.

Emu, ostrich, kiwi, cassowary and several other flightless birds are ratites. See wikipedia for more info.

A ratite tag as a species tag in which those specific flightless birds are implicated to would be pretty helpful I gotta admit, especially since ratites are incredibly similar in appearance so it'd not be too vague.

We probably should have a Phasianidae tag as well for things like chickens, peafowl, turkeys, etc.